Boston bomber arrested: how David Henneberry found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his garden

All David Henneberry and his wife Beth wanted to do was stretch their
legs.They had been cooped up under a police lockdown for about 12 hours and
now they looked forward to a breath of fresh air before nightfall.

But as Mr Henneberry, 66, strolled through the back garden of his house in Franklin Street, in the Boston suburb of Watertown, he realised something was amiss. The tarpaulin covering his boat was flapping in the wind and the cord that had held it in place had been severed.

“He got closer and realised that one of the retention straps had literally been cut,” explained Robert Duffy, Mr Henneberry’s stepson. Mr Henneberry decided to investigate.

“He put his ladder up on the side of the boat and climbed up,” said George Pizzuto, a neighbour. “And then he saw blood on it, and he thought he saw what was a body lying in the boat. So he got out of the boat fast and called police.”

Mr Duffy added: “He noticed that there was something crumpled up in a ball in the forward portion, and at that point, he became an absolute hero.”

Mr Henneberry’s discovery would bring to an end a nightmare that had begun five days earlier with the bombing of runners and spectators at the Boston marathon.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old college student, bleeding and on the run, had hidden himself in the Henneberrys’ 22-foot long pleasure cruiser. Tamerlan, 26, had been shot and killed by police at about 1am on Friday morning. In evading capture, Dzhokhar had reportedly driven over his brother’s body as he fled in a hijacked car and then on foot.

Over the course of two days, Dzhokhar had brought America’s most historic city to a standstill. Terrified citizens were ordered to stay indoors, schools and universities were shut and all public transport in and out of Boston halted. Thousands of armed police combed the streets in the search for the world’s most wanted terrorist.

By six o’clock on Friday evening, Boston police feared their man had got away, admitting at a press conference that they had no clue as to his whereabouts. They had no option but to lift a curfew that had kept indoors the residents of Watertown, following a night of violence that had claimed the life of one police officer.

The lifting of the lockdown proved to be a masterstroke. For just an hour later, Mr Henneberry would make his discovery and an immediate, emergency call to police, dialling 911. About 50 armed officers, including a Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) squad swarmed to the address.

The power supply to the house was cut off, the immediate vicinity evacuated and a police helicopter sent up. Equipped with a thermal imaging camera, the helicopter confirmed that there was a body in the boat. A robot was then manoeuvred into position to pull back the tarpaulin cover.

“He was weakened by blood loss – injured last night most likely,” said David Procopio of Massachusetts State Police.”

With the boat surrounded, officers, using a megaphone, urged Dzhokhar to give himself up. “He was not communicative,” said Ed Davis, Boston’s police chief.

After that, all hell broke loose.

“I heard 40 or 50 shots, pretty rapid. The Swat van turned up right in front of my condo with guys hanging out the side,” said Jack Mandanian, a neighbour.

Another neighbour Tony Buscher, 36, an engineer, said: “We were standing there on the porch when a few police cars came up, then a few more, then the guys with the big guns came running up. Then there were as many as 30 or 40 shots in 10 to 15 seconds. Pap pap pap pap. Pap pap pap pap. This was all within an hour of the lockdown being lifted.

“We thought he must be dead so I went up to my top window. More cops came through under the window combing through the back yards.

“We listened on the police scanner and we heard someone say, 'There’s movement, there’s movement in the boat.’ So we knew he was pinned down.

“After about nine more rounds, it sounded quiet so I thought they’d killed him. Then the scanner said, 'There’s movement.’”

The FBI’s hostage rescue team also lobbed flash grenades into the boat in order to confuse the suspect. Moments later the gunfire ceased and the negotiators moved in.

At a police press conference yesterday, Mr Davis said: “We exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was inside the boat, and ultimately, the hostage rescue team of the FBI made an entry into the boat and removed the suspect, who was still alive.” Video footage then shows Dzhokhar alive and climbing out of the boat, the tarpaulin on the boat ripped open. “They [the police] told him [Mr Henneberry] it’s all shot up… That boat’s his baby. He takes care of it like you wouldn’t believe,” said Mr Pizzuto, the neighbour, adding. “He’s going to be heartbroken.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is searched by law enforcement officers (Reuters)

In an official photograph released by authorities, Dzhokhar is seen captured on the ground, surrounded by police, and being given first aid. His shirt is pulled up revealing wounds to his neck. He was also shot in the leg.

Video footage shows Dzhokhar being sped away in an ambulance while receiving emergency treatment and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in Boston, where last night he remained under armed guard while officers waited for a chance to question him. His injuries were described as serious but not life-threatening.

The CBS news channel reported yesterday “the amount of blood” found inside the boat suggested the wounds were suffered not in the final shootout but in the gun battle almost 20 hours earlier when his brother had been killed.

It claimed the extent of the blood loss indicated that had he not been found when he was, Dzhokhar might have died from his wounds. “This is a guy who was very weak at this point and probably – had he not been discovered – he might not have lived,” said the news channel.

Police will now piece together how he had evaded capture. “We know he didn’t go straight to the boat,” said Mr Davis, explaining that Franklin Street lay just outside a security zone which had been painstakingly searched by thousands of heavily armed officers.

“We found blood in the car that he abandoned, we found blood inside the house behind the perimeter,” he added. “We had no indication that he had gotten outside of the perimeter. It was very chaotic.”

The announcement of his capture – first made over police radio at 8.41pm – transformed the mood of a city that had been gripped by fear into one of triumphant jubilation.

“We got him,” Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted immediately after Dzhokhar was arrested. “I have never loved this city and its people more than I do today. Nothing can defeat the heart of this city … nothing.”

Boston police sent out a tweet in the aftermath trumpeting, “CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.”

President Barack Obama went on US television shortly after Dzhokhar’s capture to hail the efforts of the Boston and Massachusetts police forces and the FBI in tracking down the killers.

“These men and women get up every day, they put on that uniform, they risk their lives to keep us safe, and as this week showed, they don’t always know what to expect,” said Mr Obama.

He singled out for special mention Sean Collier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, who had been killed in the early hours of Friday morning in the first gun battle. The local police chief had called it a “vicious assassination”.

But Mr Obama also promised to find out what drove two young US residents to wreak domestic terror. “One thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not, cannot prevail,” said Mr Obama. “Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed. They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because as Americans, we refuse to be terrorised.”

The president added: “We will determine what happened. We will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had. And we’ll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe.

“Obviously, there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks? And did they receive help?”

Back in Franklin Street, crowds cheered and applauded as police packed up equipment and drove away from the house. “Let’s go, Boston” crowds chanted, with some people climbing onto car roofs while others danced in the streets.

Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved American flags. Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people cheered loudly. “They finally caught the jerk,” said nurse Cindy Boyle. “It was scary. It was tense.”

In Mt Auburn Street in Watertown, near where the first gun battle took place, crowds broke into spontaneous chants of “USA! USA! USA!” and pumped fists in the air.

The biggest cheer was reserved for the FBI, and members of a Swat team were mobbed.

A group of Harley Davidson motorbike riders brought a sound system and played Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline – the signature tune of the Boston Red Sox baseball team – at full blast with the whole crowd joining in, some of them waving US flags. One man, with his baby daughter on his shoulders, declared: “We’re safe and it feels great.”

A police officer said: “It was a job well done by all. Awesome.”

The cloud of fear that had loomed over this community visibly lifted.

There were also jubilant scenes around Boylston Street in central Boston – where on Monday the two terrorists had killed three and injured about 180 others. Fewer than 10 remain in critical condition.

Rich Havens, who serves as the race’s finish area coordinator, had been waiting anxiously for some break in the case. He – like hundreds of others – had been forced to run for cover as the bombs ripped through the crowds on Monday.

“This is going to give us some closure and allow us to finally clean up the streets, return them to traffic, and look ahead to next year,” he said

For the victims’ families, there was also relief the killers had been caught.

“Tonight, we applaud the entire law enforcement community for a job well done, and trust that our justice system will now do its job,” said the family of Martin Richard, the eight-year-old boy who died in the atrocity.